Zinc fuel cell module at Zinc8’s facilities in North America. Image: Zinc8.
Zinc: versatile, abundant and very promising for energy storage across a range of applications and technologies. From data centres to long-duration storage for the grid, this metal looks increasingly likely to play a part in the future of the energy transition, writes Dr Josef Daniel-Ivad from the the Zinc Battery Initiative.
Did you know that Allesandro Volta relied on zinc to build the world’s first battery two centuries ago?
Or that the first secondary zinc-bromine battery was patented in 1885? Or that the father of electricity Thomas Edison patented a nickel-zinc battery in 1901?
Despite this promising start, when zinc batteries faced the challenge of short lifespans, competing technologies, such as lithium-ion and lead acid, became the stationary storage darlings of the…